HUD Exchange—Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery Program - Includes all program requirements for the Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) grant programs to help cities, counties, and states recover from Presidentially declared disasters, rebuild the affected areas, and provide crucial seed money to start the recovery process for a broad range of recovery activities. That page includes the CDBG-DR Toolkit, which is a helpful resource for communities to launch or implement CDBG-DR. A new component of the HUD disaster recovery funding programs is the National Disaster Resilience Competition.

Find Additional Organizational Resources by Topic by searching the categories.

What Does Successful Recovery Look Like? - This whitepaper is designed to inform community leaders and federal policymakers on what a successful recovery looks like, and what can be done to increase the chances of achieving success.

PMI Project Management Methodology for Post Disaster Reconstruction - PMI’s Project Management Methodology is a downloadable file containing instructor, participant and classroom documents, presentations and worksheets available for use by relief agencies, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and governments following a major disaster.

Financial Recovery - ​Succinct document from a trusted source on assessing your community's financial need after a disaster, creating a fundraising strategy, and managing money in a transparent way.

HUD Exchange- Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery Program - ​Includes all program requirements for the Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) grant programs to help cities, counties, and states recover from Presidentially declared disasters, rebuild the affected areas, and provide crucial seed money to start the recovery process for a broad range of recovery activities. A new component of the HUD disaster recovery funding programs is the National Disaster Resilience Competition - Describes this new CDBG-DR funding program from HUD.

PlaNYC: Progress Report 2014 - Provides an update of what progress has been made since the previous year in the areas of sustainability and resiliency. This report can be paired with the NYC Recovery page. Both websites provide progress information since Hurricane Sandy.

National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disasters Resources - National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster (VOAD) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, membership based organization that serves as the forum where organizations share knowledge and resources throughout the disaster cycle—preparation, response and recovery —to help disaster survivors and their communities.

Lessons Learned

A Decade of Disasters - This report is a compilation of lessons learned offered by companies, chambers, government agencies, and nonprofits who have been impacted or helped others recover from disasters. These shared experiences will be helpful for communities and organizations who are currently recovering from various disasters.

CDBG-Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR): HUD provides flexible grants to help cities, counties, and States recover from Presidentially declared disasters, especially in low-income areas, subject to availability of supplemental appropriations. Local Disaster Recovery Managers may be an eligible cost, as was identified in funding made available after Hurricane Sandy; see Federal Register Notice, Page 23. Consult your relevant CDBG State or HUD contact regarding any allowance for LDRMs in available CDBG-DR.

Foundations:Foundations often play an essential role in disaster relief and recovery. Not only do foundations provide grants and help raise money, they also use their experience and expertise to help civic leaders and responders distribute aid and rebuild communities. In terms of funding the LDRM position, several communities have used foundation funding – which is generally quicker to disperse than federal grant dollars - to pay for the first few months of the LDRM’s salary, with federal sources used after that. See Council on Foundation’s Community Foundation Locator.

Combine Administrative Line-Items: Most grants include funding to administer the grant. According to the Center for Effective Philanthropy, the average amount dedicated to grant administration is 13% of the awarded total. A Town could choose to pool the administrative portions from several grants into a fund used to hire a single LDRM to manage all the grants as well as other duties.

Partner With Multiple, Neighboring Jurisdictions: Perhaps three neighboring communities cannot afford to hire their own LDRM, but collectively they could afford to share one. Of course, with three partners, the LDRM’s time would be split in three. Yet, each municipality could structure their own time to meet their specific needs.

Regional Planning and Development Councils: RPDC’s are multi-jurisdictional, regional planning and development non-profit organizations. They are governed by a regional policy board with significant representation by local elected officials. As mandated by various federal programs, RPDC boards may also include business, nonprofit, education and community leaders. RPDC’s may be able to fill the LDRM capacity gap while the Town applies for additional funding to staff this position.

Volunteer: There also may be someone willing to volunteer from the community such as a prior mayor, foundation president or someone along those lines. Remember, this person is just as accountable as an employee.

Memorandum of Agreement: If willing, your county government or a neighboring municipality might agree to join you in signing a Memorandum of Agreement that would detail the sharing of staff during specified incidents. A Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) is a written document describing a cooperative relationship between two parties wishing to work together on a project or to meet an agreed upon objective. An MOA serves as a legal document and describes the terms and details of the partnership agreement.

Managing Grants and Financing

Guides, Reports and Tools

Financial Recovery - ​Succinct document from a trusted source on assessing your community's financial need after a disaster, creating a fundraising strategy, and managing money in a transparent way

The Community Resilience Economic Guide- This guide produced by NIST provides standard economic methodology for evaluating investment decisions aimed at improving the ability of communities to adapt to, withstand, and quickly recovery from disruptive events.

HUD Exchange—Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery Program - Includes all program requirements for the Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) grant programs to help cities, counties, and states recover from Presidentially declared disasters, rebuild the affected areas, and provide crucial seed money to start the recovery process for a broad range of recovery activities. That page includes the CDBG-DR Toolkit, which is a helpful resource for communities to launch or implement CDBG-DR. A new component of the HUD disaster recovery funding programs is the National Disaster Resilience Competition.

Financial Planning for Disasters: A Workbook for Local Governments and Regions - This workbook is designed to help local governments and regions understand their financial vulnerabilities to natural disasters, evaluate their financial capacity to cover the costs of those disasters, identify strategies to close the gap between financial vulnerability and capacity, and identify and address the spillover effects of neighboring local governments’ financial vulnerabilities to disasters.

Disaster Grantmaking: Council on Foundations - Provides guidance to local government and organizations on basic tips for disaster giving, disaster recovery resources, recovery planning guidance, and other valuable information.

Financial Planning for Disasters Webinar - This webinar helped participants consider their local governments’ financial vulnerability as well as their capacity to respond to future natural disasters based on research and lessons learned responding to tropical natural disasters along the Gulf Coast of the United States.